Last Summer
by Silent-Seaglass
Summary: In the year since Anna's 15th birthday, everything has changed her whole life split into before and after. Parallel to original timeline of Twenty Boy Summer, Last Summer suggests an alternative for how things could have gone.
1. Anna: At First

'Somehow everything I own smells off you. For the tiniest moment it's all not true.'

'_It's out secret...promise me_?'

"_I promise"..._

**Last Summer -**

Stretched out on my stomach across Frankie's new purple comforter in skin tight jeans, I read _Rolling Stone's _Helicopter Pilot interview three times.

"Brandywine" Frankie caps her lipstick and admires her pout shyly before wiping the dark rouge away. "It's probably a bit dark for you," she says, offering me the tube, "but try it is you want."

I don't need to try it. It _will _be too dark. My skin's so white I make the snow covered pavements outside look colourful, save for nineteen freckles completely immune to the peel-off pore strips and exfoliating citrus scrubs I once regularly barraged them with.

"Frank _please_." I flip back to the beginning of the interview. We're supposed to be making our packing lists and mapping out all of the exciting things we'll do in California next month, but I've spent the last hour watching Frankie dither, fidget and digress. "I refuse to sit about any longer."

"Who's sitting about?" Frankie asks. "I'm just – oh, shut up, Anna!"

There is an uncomfortable atmosphere hanging in the room. Its name is Matt.

Neither of us wants to mention him, I can see the hurt in Frankie's eyes.

She has beautifully ocean blue eyes, just like her brother. As I look at them, wide with sadness, I see Matt reflected back at me and I am so overwhelmed with the urge to envelope my best friend in an embrace that I have to look away.

Frankie sees and the pain immediately turns to irritation.

"Anna do you want it or not?" She asks.

"Or not. It's too dark for me."

"Suit yourself Casper." She presses her lips together, then let's out an exasperated sigh.

_Don't worry. It's our secret. _

How many times had I wished Matt would tell Frankie? As many times as I'd wished that Matt Perino –Frankie's bother and my best-friend-that's-a-boy- would finally kiss me? The same secret wish I'd made every year since I accidently fell in love with him.

The wish that, on my 15th birthday, had come true.

I could still taste frosting on my lips from the innocent cake fight that had caused us to be alone in the kitchen, whilst Frankie and her parents – Uncle Red and Aunt Jayne, even though we're not related – sat around the BBQ. I could still smell his apple shampoo – the kind from the green bottle he stole from Frankie's bathroom because he liked how it made his hair look – that caused the back of my neck to go hot and prickly. The moment everything that ever was or wasn't between us had changed with a single raised eyebrow.

"_Anna_", he'd said, dragging his frosted fingers through my hair. "_Don't you know what it means when a boy pulls your hair at your birthday party_?" No. I didn't know anything, all I knew right then was that I could see his collarbone and the small piece of blue sea glass he wore on a leather cord around his neck, rising and falling.

_Rising. _

_Falling. _

I could feel it now, cool against my own chest, its rhythm quickened by thoughts of that day.

"_Maybe I'll give it to you, if you're lucky."_

"_Happy Birthday" _He'd whispered, breath landing warm and suddenly close to my lips. With one frosting-covered hand moving from my hair to the back of my neck, the other solid and comforting on the small of my back, pressing us together, my chest against his ribs, my hip bones just below his, the tops of our bare summer legs hot and touching, he kissed me. His mouth tasted of marzipan flowers and clove cigarettes, and in those ten second the whole of my life was wrapped up in that one kiss, that one wish, that one secret that would forever divide my life into two parts.

Before, after. In that single moment, Matt, formerly known as friend, became something else entirely.

There was a knock at Frankie's door that dragged me from my memories.

The door slid ajar painfully slowly, and the scent of apples filled the room.

"Franks how many times did I ask you not to play your music that loud?" He says. "I can hardly hear it, turn it up!" An open mouthed grin broke across his face as he closed the door behind him.

Matt.

He ruffled Frankie's hair as he walked past her, tousling the straight black strands that had been strategically placed and hitched his worn blue jeans as he flopped down by my side and wrapped a sun kissed arm around my waist pulling me into his soft white t-shirt hidden within the folds of the loose chequered shirt he wore over it.

With my head against his chest I could momentarily hear the soft _thud _of his heartbeat. I remembered the scary moment last year when he'd been about to take me and Frankie to Custard's for ice cream. Cornell, where he intended to study American Literature, had called about his College arrangements causing him to apologetically cancel. A few hours later he'd been rushed to hospital with a pain in his chest where Uncle Red was told Matt had been born with a hole in the chamber walls of his heart that had, until now, gone unnoticed and for which the only treatment was major surgery. For the months following the operation I'd sat in his room with his reading his favourite books repeatedly whilst he recovered and reassuring Frankie that he would be okay, whilst secretly crying through the nights hoping it was true.

Now the beat was strong and I couldn't help but place my hand against his heart and thank whatever God had given me the miracle that had prevented the boy I loved dying of a broken heart.

Frankie coughed awkwardly.

"So," Matt started unfazed," You were going to plan Zanzibar without me?" Miming a faux tear in Frankie's direction, a mischievous grin played across his face.

"Its girls stuff Matt!" Frankie moaned, she was trying to sound annoyed but a smile played behind her eyes, she couldn't be mad at him.

"Well I assumed you were going to help me pick a nice new dress but I can see when I'm not wanted," He moved as though to get up," It's a shame as well, because I had a surprise for you two I think you'll want to include in your girly plans. But then I guess neither of you wanted to go see the Helicopter Pilot concert that's on in San Francisco whilst we're down there then..."

Any tension that had existed between the three of us disappeared as me and Frankie jumped on Matt demanding he tell us more and a pillow fight quickly broke out, Matt skilfully blocking our best efforts to club him with bedding then playfully landing feathered hits with Frankie's soft purple pillows.

We had momentarily fallen seamlessly three best friends, frosting kisses and late night promises, temporarily traded for Frankie's easy laughter that rolled across the feather covered room.


	2. Anna: Innocence

Frankie kneels in front of the window, pushing aside the wooden beads, and leaning against the sill to stare at the sky. Matt's red glass bracelet slides down her wrist, sparkling against the crashing lightening filling the night.

"He loves storms at night." I knew she meant Matt. When the storms caused power cuts often he'd be found sat in the dark by his window and watch the light dancing across the sky. I savoured this image of him, filled with quiet and calm, eyes darkened in thought. Just a quickly Frankie snapped back to our conversation. "I was thinking Anna..." The image fades away, forcing me back to the room with a wistful sigh. "We need to go shopping. Even if my brother's falling over his own feet for you, you can't seriously be considering wearing that revolting daisy disaster in California." She is referring to my old swimming costume, hunted from a charity shop no doubt by my mother several years back, it doesn't abide by Frankie's skin to clothing ratio. Although I have to agree I would rather drown myself in the sea than have Matt see it in all its neon yellow, daisy patterned glory.

"That's easy for you to say, no one should have to suffer seeing my in a two piece unprepared!" Maybe going on holiday with my stunning best friend wasn't the best plan I'd ever had. I imagine Matt stood on the beach, his olive skin shining with a thin sheen of sea water, beach shorts exposing the flat toned stomach ,I'd rested my head upon so many times in a whole new light, without a worn shirt and the homely smell of his fabric softener. He would look embarrassed by my pale angular shape waddling awkwardly down the beach towards him surrounded by girls that belonged on magazine covers.

Once again I'm overwhelmed by a feeling of despair. I don't deserve Matt, I've seen the girls he knows at college, curved in just the right places with hair curled into elaborate styles and dresses so short they challenged even Frankie's wardrobe. I try to tame my hair into a style using my fingers as combs, succeeding only in aggravating the tangled mess I gel into place each morning.

The conversation lulls into girl-talk, or more Frankie talking about girly irrelevant things and me nodding noncommittally.

_I've never seen you in a bikini, _I imagine Matt saying.

_Your never here, you wouldn't want to, _I think.

And it's true, since that frosting flavoured kiss the earth has made more than one full trip around the sun – plenty of time for one thing to have lead to another, for a passionate kiss to have gotten out of hand. I had learned everything about Matt, loved him before I even knew what to call it, still everything that Frankie's world revolved around was remained a taboo subject within our relationship. We lived off secret midnight meetings, postcards, love letters and the moments snatched where we could sit in his bedroom whilst Frankie babysat down the street before he left for Cornell.

"I know I'm not going far," he'd said on one such occasion, shuffling through a pile of CD's, 'but I'm worried about Frankie, I don't want her to feel like we don't want her around, you'll have to be the strong one Anna."

"Excuse me?" I mock outrage at the inference that I will fall apart minus his overprotective presence. "You're not going away to war; I think we can handle it."

"I know _you_ can," he said coming closer to me on the edge of the bed and taking my face in his hands. I looked up at him feigning a hurt expression. Then I tackled him, pinning him to the bed with a long kiss.

"Who's the strong one now?" I asked him.

"Okay, you win. You win." He laughed. I stayed on top of him, resting my head on his chest while he played with my hair until Frankie got home.

Maybe there had been opportunities and I had missed them, perhaps Matt was sick and tired of waiting around, refraining from making a move out of respect for my innocence. Something he was forever worrying about.

It was this train of thought that lead me to agree to let Frankie take me shopping, filling my wardrobe with shorts, cute skirt, low cut tank tops and possibly most worryingly one olive green halter neck bikini top and swim shorts highlighting every curve of my previously sheltered figure.

In my head a plan, or a mission is perhaps a more apt comparison, had started to form. Armed with my style guru friend and a suitcase of revealing apparel, I would show him just how innocent I was.


	3. Matt: Nothing Lasts

Nothing lasts forever.

That's what people told me sympathetically after they found out about me and Anna, as though Cornell were some impossible relationship destroying distance away. As though I would stumble across a room full lifelong friends like Anna one day, all beautiful, that understood me better than myself and realise how silly I'd been to fret over losing one. No, I'd had girl-friends before, but none that caused me to catch myself staring into space on occasion, pondering over things like our future, picturing her soft features, a goofy smile plastered across my face.

I had worried that college would change me, that I might return from my American Literature major mind filled with fresh ideas about the world and see only a child waiting eagerly for me. The thought filled me with resent, how I could feel any differently about Anna after years of friendship and months of waking up, my mind filled with nothing but her?

She came to see me most weekends, mostly with Frankie, but not always. I cherished this time the most, for as much as I adored my kid sister, every moment with Anna was my own little secret. Something I could hold to me and recall for inspiration as I scrawled down notes about Mark Twain or T. S. Elliot.

Everything came easier with Anna; I would sit and read to her, filled with passion by each book my lectures delved into, as I drew the words from each character she would remain transfixed on my every word, hanging on each breath, left begging for just one more page of 'Call Of the Wild' or 'The Scarlet Letter'. At night she'd fall asleep curled up to me in my t-shirt and the same flannel pyjama trousers my parents had gotten her for her birthday, my roommate Dan offering to 'give us some privacy' met with my embarrassed rejections of the idea.

I'd like to clarify; it's not that the idea has never crossed my mind. It's just I can wait, she turned 16 the other month and I know it's probably time; I just don't want things to change.


	4. Anna: Breathless

In the hours before the A.B.S.E, or Absolute Best Summer Ever as Frankie had named our trip to California, I lay awake filled with trepidation and thoughts of Matt. My phone lights up at my side and I roll over to find a message from him,

**Meet me outside ASAP ;) x **

Although I spend most night sat out watching the stars with Matt, butterflies swarm in my stomach as I pull on clothes that appear to have been thrown on but are actually strategically chosen to highlight what few assets I have. I dab on lip gloss in the hope I will achieve a playful if not sexy aesthetic, popping half a box of Tic-Tacs into my mouth in anticipation of his now familiar kisses.

Despite my parents knowledge of the relationship, each night I still sneak out as though our meetings are a covert operation.

He's waiting, already lying on his back, arms pillowed behind his head. The t-shirt he's wearing, featuring a faded game slogan, is pulled back by stretched position, revealing a band of skin that dares me to touch and trace Matt's contours.

On my last visit to Cornell I'd been sprawled on his bed, draped lazily over chest, listening to him enthuse over some romance novel I'd never heard of. 'You take my breath away!' He'd recited and then paused to gaze at me, making it clear that he could empathise with the protagonist. I'd smiled and given him a playful shove.

Now as I looked at him bathed in soft moonlight the words seemed foolish. Without Matt there was no reason to breath.


	5. Frankie: Awake

At first I was furious. I couldn't comprehend how they could do this to me. Matt was my brother, Anna had no claim to him, there could be no them without me surely.

I had refused to be around them, scowled at Matt across the dinner table, declined trips to the local Pizzeria, and dryly announced I didn't want to spoil their date.

Then I saw how my best friend smiled when she saw him. How her reflection danced in my brothers eyes as he watched her animatedly describe her family trip to the city zoo. There was no hunger in his expression, and when Anna tackled Matt to the ground for teasing her, all I saw were my two best friends fighting as they always had. A realisation that plastered such a grin to my face I had to conceal it by body slamming into them, till as always it was me and Anna teaming up against my big brother, both knowing in the end a truce would be made over ice cream and Helicopter Pilot in his bedroom.

I awake before either of my parents and ran into Matt's room expecting him to be up and organizing books into his battered Eastpak for the flight as I'd found him every year previous on the morning of our trip to Zanzibar Bay. My brother had been swallowed by his bed, leaving only an arm sprinkled with handmade bracelets hanging limply out of the duvet.

Rolling my eyes, I looked over at his phone, lazily dropped onto the floor as he'd sprawled across his mattress last night. Anna's last message still open on the screen sent in the early hours of morning. Plugging the phone into his charger at the advice of the flashing red battery bar, I took a running jump and dived onto the bed causing Matt to cry out in surprise before he tussled my hair and shoved me out of his room promising to get ready immediately.

As I walked back across the landing a smile creeps across my lips, I can feel the electricity in the air, there is something special about this holiday I can feel it.


	6. Matt: Take Off

Matt:

My fingertips burn as they rest on Anna's hand whilst we wait in the airport. Mum and dad are sidetracked planning out our terminal stay but I can see Anna's eyes wandering across the shops and open glass panelled walls, giving way to planes dancing across the runways like graceful metallic birds.

Trying to hide my amusement as she babbles excitedly to Frankie about her first airport experience, I pull myself quietly away from the group heading towards a group of stores. Shuffling through them I find a stand and order a box of powdered doughnuts, Anna's favourites, before sidling back over to my family. As I produce my surprise from behind my back even my parent's hands shoot out to grab at the snacks, I tuck my arm behind Anna and squeeze her gently, whispering into her ear as she curls in towards me automatically.

'I'm so happy your here with me.'

Her face lights up, a shy smile splitting across it and she nuzzles into my shoulder. Once we've eaten we meander around the terminal exploring the shops, getting drinks for the flight and playing hangman in the back of the journal I got Anna last year for her birthday.

Our flight is called just as Frankie's lording her victory over me and Anna. Fear flickers across Anna's eyes and she leans into me for support, rubbing her arms reassuringly I propel her across the white waxed floor towards the gate. My hand stays in hers as we are show our boarding passes to a preppy blonde with a smile too large for her pinched face, as she pauses a moment before stepping onto the plane, and as we take our seats. Here our connection is severed by the whirlwind that is my sister. She bustles past me telling me Anna is to have the window seat so she can see how magical California is from above; whilst claiming the middle seat for herself so they can have 'girl talk' she tells me condescendingly .

From here my flight consists of the excited squeals that pierce the barricade of my headphones as I try to drown my surroundings out with Helicopter Pilot's latest album. Occasionally I turn to wink at Anna over Frankie's head, trying to convey that I have no doubt these next two weeks will be the best of my life so far.


	7. Frankie: Envy

Frankie:

There is something magical about California.

You just feel lighter somehow, like your cares couldn't get through airport security or something. I turn to my best friend as we wind along the road in our hire car and laugh, we throw our heads back and howl open mouthed, my brother looking at us with mild concern. Maybe he's too old and he doesn't get it anymore, but then he wraps his long arms around us and now he's laughing so hard his eyes are closed tight shut. You wouldn't understand unless you were there, that it's the landscape, the feel of everyone you love so close it feels like you could wrap them up in a single moment and hold onto them forever that's the punch line.

Along the way we play eye spy and chatter excitedly, even Mom and Dad join in, telling us about all the boring stuff they are going to do like play golf whilst I pull faces of disgust at Anna. She and Matt are quiet, they hold hands and he points out sights from the many postcards we've sent her over the years. Anna looks across the ocean on awe, her eyes wide as though if she blinks something could be missed, whilst Matt has only eyes for Anna, as though seeing the world reflected in her eyes only makes it more beautiful.

There's a pang in my chest as I turn away from their intimacy, it's not that I'm jealous he's getting most of Anna's attention, and they are certainly very PG about their relationship. I just envy them; I want someone to look at me that fondly, I used to hear him sneak out at night to see her, so that every morning he walked around like a zombie. I've had boyfriends, but none of them were exactly love material.

There was Peter who was on the football team, but our dates consisted of some kissing outside my locker followed by the quick demise of the relationship when he tried to put his hand up my top at a party. Then there was a foreign exchange student I'd had a huge crush on that I'd eventually kissed at a dance before he went back home. Finally just recently there had been Antony. Tall with jet black hair and dazzling green eyes, I'd been smitten from the moment I sat next to him in Biology; he took me on a real date. We'd gone to a fancy Italian restaurant; it had been ever so romantic, afterwards he'd walked me home and kissed me outside my house all slow and passionate like in the books I'd read. Not like Peter who seemed to think kissing involved sticking as much of your tongue in someone's mouth as physically possible, I mean really yuk.

Antony and I went out for a few weeks, we went on four dates, and we kissed pretty much constantly. Then out of nowhere he broke up with me for his old girlfriend Jenny, I was so upset I gave her evils in the school corridors even now. There was a rumour going round that they had gone all the way, I couldn't help but wonder if that's why he broke up with me. Anna says I'm too good for him, but that's what your best friend is supposed to say when you break up. If she and Matt ever break up I have no idea what I'd say, as far as I can see they are perfect for each other.

All this makes it far harder to enjoy the drive, I start to get moody, my face getting steadily sourer till Dad suggests we stop and take a break. I apologise and tell them it's just the heat getting to me, before walking over the cliff edge we've parked at. Matt comes over and hugs me, we're closer than most siblings and so even though I'm still not really back to normal I return the embrace.

"Why don't you sit in the middle for the rest of the way? I'm sick of you taking up the window seat."

He says it jokingly, but I can tell it's a peace gesture, that he wants to give me some time to have Anna to myself so I smile gratefully at him for a second before giving him a playful shove.


End file.
